The
following brief biography of Erastus Taylor is excerpted from The History of Otsego County, New York
1740 – 1848 (D. Hamilton Hurd; Philadelphia, Penn.: Everts & Fariss;
1878):

“Among the honored representatives of "ye olden
time" was Erastus Taylor, who emigrated to this town from Bennington,
Vt., when there was only three log houses on the site of the present
flourishing village of Cooperstown. He
purchased a tract of land, embracing 500 acres, lying in Fly Creek valley,
three and a half miles above the village. His family consisted of four sons and two
daughters. The longevity of the Taylor
family is remarkable: Eleazer died
aged eighty-seven years, and Daphne [sic] at the age of seventy-three. The following are still living in the
vicinity; Joanna, aged eighty-one; Alexander, aged seventy-six; Amon, aged
seventy-three; and Lester, aged seventy.